Your Right to Know

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s top civilian and military officials yesterday expressed
expectations, even a desire, that U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan after the NATO mission
ends in December 2014, although they emphasized that no decision had been made.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, said the U.S. would sustain a strategic partnership with Afghanistan, and cited a decision
by NATO heads of state during a summit meeting in Chicago that long-term support for Kabul would
include military assistance.

“In Chicago, we also said that we’re committing to an enduring presence,” Panetta said. During
joint appearances on the NBC’s
Meet the Press and CNN’s
State of the Union, Panetta and Dempsey sought to define and defend an 11-year-old mission
in Afghanistan whose objectives have become fuzzy in the minds of many Americans, just as President
Barack Obama weighs how rapidly to withdraw the remaining troops and considers how many to propose
leaving there after 2014.

Pressed to define the mission in Afghanistan, Dempsey said it was “to establish a secure and
capable Afghanistan that can govern itself and ensure that al-Qaida never again establishes a safe
haven in that country.”

He argued that coalition forces have diminished the Taliban’s capabilities.

“Violence has gone down,” he said. “We’re also developing an Afghan army that has increased its
operational skill to provide security.”